Rebel with a cause

Rebel with a cause

Submitted photo

Rebel Taylor, standing, has been wrestling for the past 15 years. He said he still enjoys himself, despite suffering numerous injuries. Taylor’s Underground Wrestling stages bouts each Sunday afternoon in Midland.

Rebel with a cause

Submitted photo

Rebel Taylor, top, has been wrestling for the past 15 years. He said he still enjoys himself, despite suffering numerous injuries. Taylor’s Underground Wrestling stages bouts each Sunday afternoon in Midland.

Rebel with a cause

Submitted photo

Rebel Taylor, right, has been wrestling for the past 15 years. He said he still enjoys himself, despite suffering numerous injuries. Taylor’s Underground Wrestling stages bouts each Sunday afternoon in Midland.

MIDLAND – Over the past 15 years, wrestler Rebel Taylor has bruised just about every muscle in his body.
“Both my knees are now shot. My ankles are totally messed up. I have one good elbow and one good shoulder. I wake up sore every day,” said the 29-year-old Midland resident.
But he wouldn’t change a thing.
“I have done some things in wrestling that have been totally amazing. People are addicted to a lot of things. I’m addicted to the adrenalin rush that comes from wrestling,” he said. “I’ve loved wrestling all of my life.”
Rebel is his real given name, although he wrestles under the stage name of the Superhero Rebel Taylor.
In elementary school, Taylor was captivated by the personality and athletic prowess of Hulk Hogan and the late Randy (Macho Man) Savage.
“When I got older, the guys who really wanted to make me wrestle were Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash,” he said.
As he has progressed in the game, Taylor has blended a little of the style of Michaels and Nash into his own personality and technique.
“I do a lot of big power moves,” said the six-foot-five, 250-pound wrestler. “ But, even being that size, I still do a lot of the high-flying moves off the top rope.”
The self-taught Taylor said learning to execute such moves meant working out in the gym alone, leaping off the top ropes onto foam mats.
Especially when he wrestled at a weight of 350 pounds, making sure he didn’t injure himself, or his opponents, was the priority.
“It was a matter of pushing myself to do it time and time again. Actually, I’m afraid of heights,” Taylor said.
His initial fights with other promoters produced bouts he characterized as “boring,” leading him to create Underground Wrestling (UGW).
“I wanted to train guys who would be doing fast action in the ring, doing big moves all the time,” Taylor said. “When these guys get into the ring, they put everything into their matches.”
UGW bouts are held each Sunday from 4-6 p.m. at 551 Bay St. in Midland (behind Duggers Milk and Variety, enter via Preston Lane). Admission is $5 per person.